Headlines of the Day

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) has issued nine TV channel licenses in July. With this, the permitted TV channels stand at 890 in India. Seven non-news and two news license have been granted to eight companies. Seven companies have got one license each, while Viacom18 has got two licenses. Viacom18 has got two uplinking non-news licenses under the names My Cam and The Office, for English, Hindi and other Indian languages.

Lex Sportel Vision has got a non-news uplinking license under the name ATR, for English and Hindi. Paul E-Commerce, a company promoted by Punjabi music channel 9X Tashan co-owner Sandeep Bansal, has got a non-news uplinking license in the name of Pitaara, for all Indian languages. Bansal runs 9X Tashan through a separate company called Paul Entertainment. VIL Media, the owner of Telugu news channel V6, has got a non-news license in the name V6 Ent.

Prashant Chothani and Shri Venkatesh Films director Mahendra Soni-promoted Media Worldwide has got a non-news up linking license under the name Travelxp, for Gujarati, Hindi, English and other Indian languages. The company owns and operates a clutch of music channels, namely Music India, Sangeet Marathi, Sangeet Bhojpuri and Sangeet Bangla. Incidentally, Chothani runs travel and lifestyle channels TravelXP and TravelXP Tamil under a company called Celebrities Management. Cauvery Power Trading Chennai’s Tamil news channel Cauvery News, which is slated to launch on August 25, has also got the license. The free-to-air (FTA) channel is promoted by S Elangovan, who is also the promoter of Elango Industries, Kaveri Gas Power, Cauvery Solar Power and Cauvery Power Generation Chennai. Shopping Zone India TV has got a license to launch a dedicated home shopping channel, Shopping Zone. However, the license is under the name Shop 5. The company’s website claims Shopping Zone is a dedicated shopping TV channel that showcases products that provide extraordinary value and exceptional quality. Shopping Zone also has an online selling platform SZ online.in. The Chennai-based company is promoted by Mahesh Babu, who is also the MD of the company. Shreya Broadcasting, which owns and operates Telugu news channel TV5 News and Telugu devotional channel Hindu Dharmam, has got a news license to launch TV5 Kannada. TelevisionPost.com had reported that the company had plans to launch a Kannada news channel.

Incidentally, July received the highest number of TV channel licenses in 2017. The previous highest was in June when the MIB granted seven licenses. The ministry has so far granted 33 TV channel licenses this year until July 31. This includes three in January, four in February, six in March, four in May, seven in June and nine in July. No licenses were issued in April. As on July 31, the MIB has granted permission to 1,087 private satellite TV channels, of which 197 license s have been cancelled. Thus, there are 890 permitted private satellite TV channels having valid permission in India, including 390 news and 500 non-news licenses. The ministry had granted seven TV channel up linking licenses including six non-news and one news in June taking the total licenses with valid permission to 883. The new licensees included AETN TV18, FYI TV18 HD and History TV18 HD Tamil, Indore-based Enter10 Television’s Enter10 Bangla and Shaandar Cinema, Bengaluru-based Lakshmi Gold Khazaanaa’s TV1 News 24×7, Delhi-based ad agency Graphisads’ Prerna and BnB Entertainment’s BNB.- Dth Forum